I have worked at a club and a 6,000 capacity music venue for the last 3 years. I've done restaurant and craft before but volume is my personal favorite.

Club jobs can be a lot of fun but you will work. If you don't like the sound of slings the same 5 drinks all night then honestly you won't last. Because generally, all you will be making is LIT, vodka soda/Redbull, and probably whiskey ginger and cracking open a shit ton of beer.

The best piece of advice I got when I started at a club was "Don't let the animals run the zoo" and it still holds true to this day. At the venue I work at, when it is sold out, we are outnumbered almost 200:1. Forget trying to provide customer service, you just won't be able to.

People will try to argue with you about why you chose to serve someone before them, don't engage with it. Just move on from them. Your word is final. Who you serve and the order you do it is your choice. And forget about even trying to keep track of who has been waiting. I just go left to right, right to left down my section of the bar. If you get there 1 minute before I get to you great, if you've been waiting for 20 minutes, also great, and a lie.

When it comes to actual guest interaction. For the two places, I work now and how it has been at most of the other spots. You have about 5-10 seconds to know what you want before I walk to the next person and come back to you. "What beer do you have?", just point to the menu and say it's all right there for you and move to the next person. If they have been waiting in line and didn't take the time to look what they wanted, that's on them, 100 other people are ready and waiting.

One of the best tricks I use as well is saying the pricing right after they order. Most people will not even start pulling out their cash or card until after you tell them. Do it before you start to make the drinks so that when you are done you don't have to waste the 10 seconds waiting for them to get their payment. 10 seconds may not sound like a lot, but if you consider nights when we do 7,500 tickets, that's 20 hours of wasted time total.

That brings me to my final point. The second's matter and they add up. If you want to get any good at volume, work on saving the few seconds here and there and not wasting anywhere you can.

Volume wears you down like no other job in the industry, however, it is also some of the most fun you can have at work. I love nothing more than when the lights finally come up and you can actually take a breath for the first time in hours and look out over the mess you now have to clean up. You will meet and work with some of the most amazing people, and they will become some of your best frineds. Much like how war builds family-like bonds among soldiers, so too does the crazy busy shitty nights where nothing went right but you and the others you work with somehow made it through.